The Newton School Committee announced late Thursday afternoon that it would fine Superintendent David Fleishman one week’s pay — slightly more than $5,000 — after he was accused of plagiarizing a commencement address he delivered to a packed field house last month.

Two recent Newton South High School graduates Jordan Cohen-Kaplan and Kylie Walters — both former staff members of the high school’s newspaper The Lion’s Roar — cited in a special issue published Wednesday that the superintendent used language close to a college commencement speech given by Gov. Deval Patrick a month earlier.

In one of the five examples they cite, Patrick tells Boston University graduates in May, “Real human connection, the nuance of empathy and understanding, is often more gradual and elongated than Twitter.”

A month later at Newton South High School, Fleishman echoes: “Lastly, personal connection, the nuance of empathy and understanding, is often more incremental and complex than Twitter.”

Cohen-Kaplan and Walters didn’t say what they wanted to come of their reporting, only that they felt it was important for them to say it.

“Again and again we have been taught that in an era of increased connectivity and information accessibility we must take extra care to respect intellectual property,” they wrote.

“If after 13 years in the Newton Public Schools we do not have the integrity to speak up about what we believe to be wrong, we will have failed,” they wrote.

Brian Baron, the chair of Newton South’s English department, said he was proud of the two South graduates who consulted him while working on their story.

“I'm incredibly proud of Kylie, Jordie, and the entire Roar staff for speaking up and continuing the paper's long tradition of outstanding student journalism,” Baron told the TAB. “David Fleishman made a mistake, has acknowledged it, and has paid a price. He is an exceptionally talented educational leader, and I remain excited about helping him deliver a world class education to Newton students.”

The two reported that Fleishman said he had heard clips of the Patrick speech on the radio and that he built on themes in that speech.

In a statement issued Thursday, Fleishman apologized and asked the Newton School Committee to take disciplinary measures.

“As someone who writes a range of pieces that are distributed to the broader public on a regular basis, I am well aware of the importance of citing appropriate sources. I am also cognizant of the notion that public officials need to be as careful in their spoken remarks as they are in their written remarks-something that too often gets lost,” he said in the statement.

“In retrospect, I should have cited the governor in my remarks as I did David McCullough Jr. In my judgment, it is essential that public officials not only accept critical feedback but acknowledge when we have made mistakes,” he said.

The School Committee became aware of the incident on Friday June 27 when a teacher approached them, School Committee Chair Matt Hills told the TAB. He said the committee began executive meetings and discussing what to do as early as the following Monday.

“They were absolutely, positively done in accordance with open meeting law,” Hills said. “I made absolutely sure of that.”

Hills contends that because the discussion involved a personnel issue, the school committee could hold executive session to discuss it.

However, the TAB could not locate a public notice of the school committee executive sessions on either the school or city’s website. State law requires 48 hours notice of executive sessions. The school committee also met in “emergency session” today after the TAB called seeking comment. That meeting had originally been scheduled for the beginning of next week, Hills said.

“The School Committee and its Chair had several calls and meetings with the Superintendent and met in Executive Session in June and July. We agreed with Superintendent Fleishman’s acknowledgment as to what, in retrospect, he should have done, and we determined an appropriate action,” the committee said in a statement.

“The loss of a week’s pay is a serious issue for most people,” said Hills.

In a public statement, the committee praised Fleishman’s record and indicated they expected him to continue in his position.

“We have many important opportunities and serious challenges ahead, and we are confident that David is the right leader to continue moving our system forward,” they said.

Hills said that now that the decision had been made on this serious issue, he and the school committee were looking forward to thinking about other issues.

This is “a very serious issue,” Hills said. “But we’ve acted appropriately. The decision is done. It’s behind us now, and everyone - including the superintendent - is moving forward.”

An anonymous student accused Mansfield School Superintendent Brenda Hodges of something similar with her commencement day speech last month.

The accusation eventually led to a change.org online petition asking the superintendent to step down. She announced her retirement earlier this month.

There are multiple web pages dedicated to explaining plagiarism to students in Newton. According to the Newton South handbook:

“Cheating and plagiarism are serious violations of the personal and academic standards of the school and are destructive to the learning process. ‘Plagiarism is the improper use, or failure to attribute, another person's writing or ideas (intellectual property). It can be an act as subtle as the inadvertent neglect to include quotes or references when citing another source or as blatantly unethical as knowingly copying an entire paper verbatim and claiming it as your own.’